Requirements for SAP ASE environments and databases

In order to begin using SAP ASE environments with Delphix, you will need to configure the source and target hosts with the requirements described on this page.

SAP ASE host requirements

When working with ASE dSources, it is necessary that the Staging and Target ASE instances have an identical Page Size configuration to the dSource (e.g. 2KB / 4KB / 8KB). This is set during ASE instance installation.

The Delphix Engine will prevent the use of incompatible instances.

These requirements are applicable to source, staging, and target environments. Target environments have additional requirements, which are detailed in the Target Host Requirements section below.

On each host with SAP ASE, there must be an operating system user (e.g. delphix_os) configured to the required specifications for Delphix.

Host requirement	Explanation
Profile and privileges should be the same as the ASE user (e.g. Sybase) on the host.	For example, delphix_os should have the same environment variable (e.g. $PATH), umask, and ulimit settings as the user sybase.
Delphix operating system user’s primary group should be the same as SAP ASE instance’s group.	To perform Sync/Validated Sync operations on the source database, Delphix reads a number of files like SAP ASE Backup server log file, ASE Dump History file, and backup files. If Delphix OS user does not have the same group as of the SAP ASE instance, these files will need “everyone” read permissions, which is less restrictive.
Delphix Engine Toolkit Directory on Source Host (e.g. /var/opt/delphix/toolkit) The delphix_os user must own the directory The directory must have permissions 0770, for example, -rwxrwx---. However, you can also use more permissive settings. The directory should have 256MB of available storage	If you sync Delphix with a dSource by asking SAP ASE to create a new backup, the SAP ASE instance owner will need write permissions to the toolkit (or the mount point if you use the CLI to specify a directory other than the toolkit). Delphix will issue the "DUMP DATABASE" command to write to the staging database's "temp" directory which is mounted on the staging host. Has write permission for the mount-point directory (by default the toolkit directory but can be a separate mount point specified in the command line interface)
Backup Server Log File Permissions	In the case that the Delphix OS user is not in the same group as the SAP ASE instance user, you need to change permissions to SAP ASE Backup server log file from “rw-r---” to “rw-r-r--”. The “rw-r---” to “rw-r-r--” permissions change is also required if Dump History files are in use.
The Delphix Engine must be able to make an SSH connection to the source host (typically port 22).

SAP ASE database requirements

Delphix for SAP ASE requires a specific login to run discovery and linking activities for instances and databases. Delphix requires specific user permissions for database discovery and linking (detailed below).

Discovery and Linking can be separated into separate users if desired.

If you are using an ASE backup server instance shared with multiple ASE data server instances, the use of the dump history file feature is mandatory. This should be enabled on all instances and the dump history file in a location accessible by the Delphix OS user account from the Staging host.

SAP ASE source database requirements

The discovery database user (delphix_disc for example) must have SELECT privileges on the following tables for each SAP ASE instance on the source host:

Sysdatabases
Sysservers
Syslisteners
Sysconfigures
Syscurconfigs

Database linking

Permissions for linking environments can be included under the “discovery” user or can be a separate, dedicated role - e.g. delphix_link. If separate, the “linking” user must be specified when linking each dSource (delphix_link for example) that has SELECT privileges on the above tables.

If you will select New Full Backup when linking, this user must also have privileges to take a new full database dump of the source database. For more information about linking options, see Linking an SAP ASE Data Source

The link database user can be different for each instance and database on the source host.

Sample Script to create delphix_link on Linux

CODE


note: run as sa

sp_addlogin delphix_link, "StrongPassword"

go

sp_adduser delphix_link

go

grant select on sysdatabases to delphix_link

go

grant select on sysservers to delphix_link

go

grant select on syslisteners to delphix_link

go

Requirements when resizing source databases

For SAP ASE on Delphix, transaction logs are helpful for maintaining a Timeflow via logsync. However, not all customers will want to maintain these logs for bandwidth purposes. The following section will help guide users on requirements to maintain timeflows when it comes to resizing databases with and without (trunc log on chkpt).

Active SAP ASE Feature on Source Host	Requirement
(`trunc log on chkpt`) is disabled	take a transaction log dump immediately after the resize operation completes.
(`trunc log on chkpt`) is enabled	take a full database dump immediately after the resize operation completes.

If multiple resizing operations are performed without taking transaction log dumps between each operation it may be necessary to manually sync the source database dumps.

Additional target host requirements

This section describes the user privileges, and environment discovery requirements, that are required for SAP ASE target hosts and databases, collectively referred to as target environments.

Target host requirement	Explanation
The operating system on the target environment must be the same as, or binary compatible with, the operating system on the source environment
As the Delphix Engine uses NFSv3 for mounting target host filesystems, the prerequisite packages to support NFSv3 client communication are required for normal operation, and the required services to support NFS client communications (including file locking) must be running This includes: portmapper / rpcbind status daemon (rpc.statd) NFS lock manager (rpc.lockd/lockmgr)	The Delphix Engine uses NFSv3 as a defacto mounting standard for target host file systems.
SAP ASE Source/Target Environment Version Compatibility	The major/minor/macro version of the target ASE instance should be the same or higher than the version of the source ASE instance. Delphix supports the ASE databases to be restored from lower to higher version or within different patch/sp levels as long as SAP ASE supports it. If the target environment is used as staging then the SAP ASE version on the target environment must be the same as the version on the source environment. However, EBF/SP version on the target environment can be different.
Create OS User (e.g. delphix_os)	There must be an operating system user, such as delphix_os, that meets the following requirements:
OS User must have - The $SYBASE environment variable set for non-interactive shells (such as via the .bashrc configuration file)	Additional Settings for the $SYBASE environment variable: Set the PermitUserEnvironment configuration parameter to "yes" in the sshd_config file Add the variable to the user's .ssh/environment file Restart the SSH daemon
OS User must have appropriate access to Target Hosts/Instances	Can login to the target host via Secure Shell (SSH) Can login to ASE instances using isql with LANG=C set
OS User’s Primary Group must be the same as ASE Instance’s Primary Group	If not, the file system permissions can be more restrictive. This also is a better security practice than granting world read access to the toolkit or the backup files.
Permissions granted via sudo authorization of the commands: Disable tty for the delphix_os user for mount and umount Permission to run mount and umount as super-user. On Solaris, permission to run pargs on Solaris On AIX, permission to run the nfso command as super-user. (Optional) On AIX and Linux, permission to run ps as super-user.	See Sudo Privilege Requirements for SAP ASE Environments for further explanation of this requirement, and Sudo File Configuration Examples for SAP ASE Environments for example file configurations.
There must be a database user, such as delphix_db, with the sa_role on each instance on the target environment
The database user such as delphix_db for any staging instances must also have the sybase_ts_role
There must be a directory on the target environment where you can install the Delphix Engine toolkit, for example,/var/opt/delphix/Toolkit.	The delphix_os user must own the directory The directory must have permissions 0770, for example, -rwxrwx--. However, you can also use more permissive settings. The directory should have 1GB of available storage Avoid using the home directory of the delphix_os user If you intend to use the LogSync feature, it is recommended to make the toolkit directory as short as possible to keep the full path to the transaction log file names under ASE's 127 character limit. For example, create the toolkit directory as /tk. Alternatively, link the dSource using the command line interface and specify the "mountBase" parameter to mount the staging database's devices under a directory following your own naming convention.
(Optional - If the target host will be used as a staging target environment) Must have at least one of the following two options configured: use sp_addserver to add the staging ASE instance's Backup Server to sysservers on the source ASE instance (so that remote database dump/load works) OR Full and transaction dump files from the source database must be available locally to the staging database (over NFS, replication, scp, etc.)	(see Managing SAP ASE Environments)

Special considerations - OS user settings (If target host is hosting staging DBs)

Target host requirement	Explanation
If you don’t add the Delphix operating system user to the SAP ASE instance owner’s group, greater permissions will need to be granted to the backup files to ensure read access to the dumps and/or transaction logs.	Delphix looks for the backup files on the staging host (unless a "remote" backup server is used in which case, the remote host is used which is often the source environment).
ASE Instance Owner Write Permissions to the toolkit (or mount point if you use the CLI to specify a directory other than the toolkit)	If you sync Delphix with a dSource by asking ASE to create a new backup, the SAP ASE instance owner will need write permission to the toolkit (or the mount point if you use the CLI to specify a directory other than the toolkit). Delphix will issue the "DUMP DATABASE" command to write to the staging database's "temp" directory which is mounted on the staging host.
Has write permission for the mount-point directory	The mount-point directory defaults to the toolkit directory, which has write permissions. However, the mount-point directory can be customized, it only needs to have write permissions.

Additional ASE tuning recommendations

In SAP ASE 15.7 SP60 and higher, there is a configuration parameter named "enable large pool for load". SAP ASE automatically tunes the caches for recovery on reboot but does not do this for load database and load transaction recovery, since it could impact other databases on a production server. Delphix recommends that the staging SAP ASE instance be separate from the SAP ASE production instance and SAP ASE instances hosting VDBs so enabling this parameter should have a beneficial impact on performance for the SAP ASE staging instance.
Specify the "relaxed" strategy for replacing the cache in the default data cache (sp_cacheconfig ‘default data cache’, relaxed) in the SAP ASE staging instance. Since the mount/unmount process invalidates the pages anyway, the page chain is really just unneeded overhead on the staging server.
Staging and target SAP ASE instances should have disk mirroring disabled.
sp_configure "disable disk mirroring" – run value should be 1, which is the default. If it is 0, change it using
sp_configure "disable disk mirroring", 1 – this parameter is static so the ASE instance must be restarted for this change to take effect.
Delphix will mirror the number of devices used on the source database for the staging database (dSource) and each VDB created from that source database. The number of devices parameter should be scaled appropriately based on the max number of virtual databases that will be provisioned to the SAP ASE instance. This parameter can be changed using: sp_configure "number of devices", .
SAP ASE 15.7.0 SP100 and later releases support the shrink command. In some cases, Delphix must increase the number of devices used for databases if this command is used. Delphix creates a minimum of the same number of devices as the source database for the staging database (dSource) and each VDB and will add more devices for every 4TB of fragment holes. See SAP ASE issue CR#799273 for additional details.

To support multiple VDBs and the staging databases, you may need to increase the parameter number of alarms.

Delphix uses SAP ASE operations that use alarm structures such as MOUNT and UNMOUNT. The number of alarms limits the number of these operations which can be run concurrently. Various SAP ASE instance failures can occur if the available alarm structures are exhausted. The amount of memory consumed by increasing the number of alarm structures is small. Delphix recommends that the number of alarms value is increased to at least 4096.

ASE manual discovery

When an SAP ASE environment is added Delphix automatically discovers your SAP ASE instances. Manual discovery allows users to add instances that were not automatically discovered. This feature is currently only supported via the CLI. For more information please refer to Configuring ASE Manual Discovery